Courted into Shadow Dance
by Hikari Nanase
Summary: ZEROTH OF THE BLUE ROSE ANTHOLOGY: It is a love that cuts, bleeds, and shines like glass. Let the light break through, and become by the endless splendor. I am the glass. If you touch me, you will bleed.


"Courted into Shadow Dance" Chapter 1

5/3/03

By: Hikari Nanase

E-mail: hikari1612@netzero.net

Notes: I'll be popping in and out of fanfiction as the whim calls, so there's no telling what will happen to the Blue Rose Anthology. I've started _Courted into Shadow Dance _to fill the gap between _Pulse_ and _Let's Fly as the Birds Do_…but, again, it most likely won't be finished. This is just fine, as there are better fanfic writers out there. I'm becoming lazy. ^.^()

**P.S.-** The writing style is somewhat impressionistic. Details and events are implied, although never fully stated. A majority of the dialogue will stand alone, rarely describing who is speaking. Lastly, because the story is based on memory and is written in first person, coherence is fragmented. 

~*~*~*~

            Consider the serpent. By literary theory, it is the archetypal symbol of temptation and seduction. Consider the dragon. By literary theory, it is the archetypal symbol of protection and sweet providence. In both species, there is flight, shadow dance, and the inevitable fall into the cursed black pool called eternity. This is why we dress in black: to mourn our own deaths.

Now, when sensuality comes into play with such things as the sinuous twists of body and sword, that's when the exotica of legend and adventure combine. And so, with such understanding of the roots of my flesh, I've decided: make a spin and hope I won't fall into indulgent dizziness. There is nothing to find in disorientation, but the unwanted need to vomit and the dull hope of finding stability once more. 

Therefore, when I spin, I spin intelligently. As my cloak whirls in those familiar colors of red fire and black smoke, there is an enchantment that drapes over my manner, and I know this quite well. Hypnosis is one of my key strengths. If I can blind you with my spinning, you are sure to die. When you die, you become mine and mine alone. That is the sensuality of the serpent- the dragon. We are made to kill those we hate and love so dearly.

It is a fake love, henceforth a fake passion. False beauty can be found in the core of my heart. It is multifaceted. It sends colors forth from the light. It shakes my chest and awakens me. Nothing in my soul is real unless my mouth bleeds and the glass cuts my throat. Dragons breathe fire because their hearts burn in agony. I know. It's there.

I suppose that is why I continuously return to him. He could be the one. He might be the one. I hold no expectations in him, nevertheless. For he is designed in much the same fashion as I: deigned to kill or threaten those dear or hated. 

Yet, a part of me held that he could, indeed, remove it from me so that I may no longer assume pretense. Whether or not this was a sick desire to end lonely despair with the folly of lust, I am not certain. Subsequently, I asked him:

"Are you interested?"

He looked upon me calmly from his desk, momentarily removing his emerald eyes away from the ruby stone I had brought him. "Allow me time to consider it."

"Hn. I would have thought you of all souls would have said 'yes' immediately. What causes you to hesitate?"

His fine fingertips rotated the gem, the depths of it sparkling wildly under his lamp. Part of his expression frowned, while the other part was bold enough to grin. "Hiei, you _know_ I am human."

I scoff at his reason. Human indeed. If he _were_ such a meek human as he implies, I would have been able to kill him the night we met. Unpleasantly, I smirk and close my eyes. "It makes no real difference to me what your form is. Expertise is a matter of merit, not race."

"Hm…" Almost in mock elegance he sets the stone on his desk and crosses his arms over his chest. Kurama's eyes glint dangerously from beneath his curtain of red hair, something hot and lazily grotesque forming upon his lips. "Shouldn't you be concerning yourself with…" He looked up to the ceiling, pretending to search for the proper word when he had already selected it but only a minute ago. "…matters of _kin_?"

He was taunting me in the affairs of blood and flesh. Huh! Wasn't there an irony here he should have detected before making speech? I let this thought go, and settle for safe anger instead. "Bastard." I whisper. "You enjoy provoking me?"

"No, I enjoy extracting the _truth_ from you." Kurama moves slightly on his swivel chair, his cheeks warm and his lips just barely smiling. "On your own you are a skilled thief. I don't see why you need to invite me."

Invite you? No. That's not it. Think of it as a test. After all, Eve didn't hand over the shiny, red apple over nothing. "Thievery loses its adrenaline when it is done by habit."

"Hiei desiring to risk rapid waters? Not out of necessity, but out of pleasure?" Kurama laughed, white teeth sparkling like the gem. "What kind of fool do you think I am?"

My, how he loves flattery. Always ask questions you know you like the answers too. It's the easiest form of self-persuasion. 

"A clever one." I replied. " Thus, my point in the invitation." 

Looking to him again, I noted his innate fascination with the stone. He rotated it between his fingers once more before recovering his lucidity. 

"Keep the ruby if you like. I could care less for it. If your decision suddenly slides into the affirmative, you know where to find me."

He clutches the gem within his fist. "I'll consider it."

There was a physical interest. However, not in matters that would land either of us breathless and blind. Not at all. This is fact, as childhood never did make an impression on me with the affairs of touch. Those belts were, and are, worn with reason. The hilt of my sword is always at hand with reason. My ways are methodical, but only because the state of my mind is in disarray. Clear thought was a gift that came only with bondage to the eye. 

I waited for him in the thicket of the wood. The light played quite nicely through the leaves, and I admitted to myself that it was my season: autumn. The leaves above were like stained glass, and rays of shattered sun speckled the moist soil with hues of red, orange and gold. It is so strange to look up into the trees and hear those eerie whispers of yesterday. I am drawn into those whispers, and yet I could never quite understand what they were trying to remind me.

Most likely I couldn't understand because I never gave my full attention. My ears heard, but my eyes saw and what I saw then was pleasant, although not surprising. Kurama came toward me in his usual pace- as if he still had those luxurious tails to swish about as he walked. I smiled.

"I thought so. You couldn't resist."

"I've dragged part of myself." He said bitterly, stopping a foot away. "This better be worth my time, Hiei."

"It disgusts me to hear you weigh between jewel hoards and books." I cringed. "Admittedly, it's more frightening than disgusting."

"A jewel found in every story told," he begins thoughtfully. "Can outshine even the greatest troves in Arabia."

"Hn." Fucking books. "You are technically late. Normally you would come just at sunset. The crickets are chirring. What kept you?"

A distinct softness covered his demure. Instinctively, I braced myself for the inevitable before he answered: "Mother."

An unpleasant word if there ever was any. A drop of breast milk, and already Kurama is ridiculously charmed. Leave it to a cur to measure a bitch's teat with his tongue. I looked away and grimaced to myself, a bit of a smile coming through but only out of sheer wryness. Oh yes, mother's milk. I was away from home for so long that by the time I returned, mine had gone completely sour.

"You are too protective of her." I state perhaps too angrily. "The maximum life span of a human being is, at most, a tenth of ours. Emotions such as yours are deadly, you realize."

"That may be true, but life is equal to all regardless of length. I sometimes forget the validity of this. I've cheated death so many times that mortality has lost its meaning on me."

The ability to cheat proves itself to be an important facet in my homeland. Most cheaters make use of both wisdom and dumb luck. And it was by this dumb luck that Kurama found the perfect body to merge with: a woman with an embryo no larger than the size of my thumb. Anyone could have squashed him.

I lead him to a tear in the Rei barrier I had found a year ago. He knows of it, of course. Many a night he would slip out of his household to see it, but never walk through it. It's annoying- knowing that I'm his only excuse to return to his past. Always running away from it. You, scared little cur.

When we walked through our noses were dipped in familiar odors. Bad scents, mostly- of things rotten and destroyed. You can't sleep peacefully here, not unless you are willing to be a part of this decay. 

It is a habit of his to flip his long, silky hair. The air would take the scent of those shimmering strands and sedate all that were around him. It was the kind of scent that simply made you want to collapse wherever you were at and be engulfed by that intoxicating darkness sleep rarely brings. It is lethal to admire fox hair- human or not.

"What are you doing? Improving the environment?"

"I'm not sure whether or not to take that as a compliment."

"If you can't take the smell, you can't take anything. Go back."

He looked around, and then glanced at his feet. Apparently the tenderness of the soil was rather awkward to him.

"…Where- where _are_ we?"

"Hn. For a Youko, your nose is ill-equipped. You can't even recognize disembowelment yard when you're stepping on it."

That's what made the soil soft: old organs spilt from torsos punished for treason against Yomi, one of the three lords. From Kurama's face, I could tell he comprehended this. His eyes had suddenly glazed over- pensive and vindictive at the same time. He recognized. I know what he knows. I knew what he thought he was hiding from me.

"We're stealing from Yomi's palace?"

"Is your interest stirred further?"

"You're mad."

I laughed. "Not exactly from his palace, but from one of his vaults. They are kept away from the imperial grounds and are hidden beneath where we are standing."

"Leave it to him to be creative." 

"Well? Are you in or not?"

"In."

Not for the treasures, but for the fun of aggravating an old adversary. Good to know you still have your sick sense of humor. 

            Speaking of humors, we got soaked in all four as we sifted through the yard for the trapdoor. Blood. Urine. Shit. Mucus. Body parts are quite interesting to look at. Spleens are always engorged with blood- tender to the touch. Intestines are those annoyingly long pipes our legs would get tangled with. They are pink in color, but the crap that comes out of them is the kind of green we would only see after a three-week hangover. Purple pancreases look like a hybrid of corn and prune. Kidneys. Came in pairs, but they were never connected in this sort of place. One was always torn away from its twin. Interesting.

            It smelled rancid- in between fish spoiling under the sun and feces from gods know what. This is what hell is. This is my homeland. This is where that thief found me… as an infant no larger than that fly-infested uterus I landed on. It cushioned my fall.

            "I found it." 

            "Then open it."

            "Not that simple. I need to crack the code."

            Trapdoor. In every sense, the door manifested the word 'trap'. Six rows of keys, along six columns of keys. Press the proper six, the door will open. Yellow and red wires. A code-sensitive lock. Black and white wires. Alarms. A single miscalculation and we would be donors to this yard.  

            "Six columns. Six rows."

            "A number as imperfect as it is perfect."

            "Magic numbers, known only to those from the Era of Black Birth."

            "Right."

            "Wise choice."

            "But not for a thief like me."

            "Hn. Vain."

            "Thank you."

            "What order?"

            "Six. The number of most importance."

            "Then four."

            "The number of death."

            "Followed by…"

            "Two." We said in unison.

            "The number of halves, which never reach zero."

            "That's only three. What are the others, Kurama?"

            "Hm." He looked at the keys for a moment, so focused that it was as though he had forgotten my very presence. "It's a mirror."

            "Are you sure?"

            He nods. "Era of Black Birth. All is equal under death and life. Light is only as important as the darkness it is surrounded by. Paradoxes. The next three numbers are exactly the same, but in _ascending_ order. Two. Four. Six."

            "Kurama…"

            "Yes?"

            "Sometimes you frighten me."

            "That's a compliment, no doubt."

            "Pull the latch."

            He did, and we looked at the wide pipe heading straight down. Kurama took a seed and threw it in. We watched the small speck disappear into the darkness, and when we heard an almost inaudible splash, waited patiently. From the shadows, there was a small sparkle of light emanating from a glow lily. 

            "Sewers."

            "I never said this was going to be scenic."

            "For Makai, Hiei, scenic isn't a good thing."

            "Very well. This is going to be scenic."

            "You're sick."

            "I know."

            I allowed him to enter the pipe first, and then I followed after. Our movements in the water caused it to radiate gleaming hues of yellow and orange- an obvious path to follow when nothing else could be seen.

            "I should burn these clothes."

            Definitely. Humans have bad taste. "Yes, you should."

            "I'm talking about the stench and stains."

            Oh. That too, I suppose. I said nothing.

            We came to a larger door, one that looked like a giant safe. It was made of steel. Cold steel. Numerous bolts. A wheel to open it. Locked by protractible metal cylinders surrounding the entire circle of the door. Wires that timed the air containment. Yes, I knew this type. 

            "No puzzle."

            "Correct. It's entirely mechanics."

            "Have you seen something like this before?"

            "Of course, I was put into one when I was two."

            "You speak of it so offhandedly." Kurama says quietly.

            "Hn."

            It's different working on the opposite side, however. From the inside, I was lucky to understand that the back of a vault's door was like the vault's skeleton. I saw how the cables moved- how one interacted with the other in a very evil ballet. It entranced me… The system entranced me. 

            The vault in itself is complex, but its logic is simple. A normal safe contains the air its volume can hold unless a living being is trapped within it. Because this vault is large, a ventilation system is used once someone steps inside it. Air from the outside goes in.

            When closed, the direction of air from the ventilation system is reversed. Instead of air traveling inward, air travels outward. The air is then brought to the vault door. From there, it is dispersed along the interior of the door. The air pressure forces the metal cylinders up, locking the vault's entrance. The only way to open it is to reverse the direction of air. 

            I nearly suffocated to death when I was two. I was too smart for it… 

            "How do I displace it?"

            "Hiei?"

            "When I was little, I tore the interior vents open and used scrap mental to force air back into the room of the vault. Eventually, there wasn't a sufficient air supply to fasten the cylinders in place, therefore the door swung open."

            "Cylinders?"

            "The door is circular, and it's like that for a reason: it's easier to distribute air. Logically, then, the door is hollow to contain that air. When the full volume of the door is reached, the cylinders are pushed upwards and are secured by the holes in the frame. Does that make sense?"

            "So now we're looking into how to displace it."

            "Exactly."

            "Without triggering any alarms."

            "Yes."

            "And without damaging the door that would trigger the aforementioned alarms."

            "That's right."

            "I wish this was a puzzle."

            My department, not yours. I removed the ward that was covering my jagan, as it was a little difficult to remember what it looked like from inside. Shit. Yomi is rich. No wonder the damn bastard could squander on stupid uniforms. More wires. Blue and violet. Wait. The thin steel pipes from behind the door. Thin pipes- horizontal across the width. I remember. They moved into opposite directions when the vault was opened or closed. They switched places. Purple is inside top pipe. Blue is inside the bottom. 

            "That's it. The wires are inside the pipes. That's it. Kurama, I need you to send a vine through the door- as thin as possible. Then, I need you to command it to rotate two pipes from behind and fix them in place."

            "Thought you could do this without me, hm?"

            "Shut up."

            Even though the only light we had came from the water, I could tell he was smiling. There was no malice behind it at least. But… there was something else behind it instead. 

"I couldn't do this without your help either, you know. Direct me on where to lead the vines."

            He knelt down and laid a seed between the door and its frame. Touching it, a vine sprouted out and slithered through the amazingly tight space. 

            "Do you see it, Hiei?"

            "Yes. Keep going; you don't want the vine to get caught inside a hollow. We need it directly behind the door."

            "How is it now?"

            "It's there."

            "All right."

            "Make it move up."

            "Like this?"

            "Yes. Now, we need the vine to branch into opposite directions- right and left. Good. Make the one on the left go up more. Stop. Now move it further to the left until I tell you to stop again. There. Make the tip wrap around. Do the same for the right. Keep going… Keep going. That's it. Wrap it. Now I need you to listen carefully. The vine on the left, pull it out and lower it to where the vine on the right is. Next, move pull the vine on the right out and move it to where the left one was. Force both of them down… now!"

             Kurama grunted slightly at the effort, but pleasure from such a task was evident in his foxy sneer. Only a few moments passed before we could hear the air being sucked and the cylinders dropping one by one in heavy clunks. After that, there was silence. We stepped forward and pushed open the door.


End file.
